Classroom practices blog by Marina Amador, a high school teacher and Turnitin Certified Trainer

My first exposure to turnitin.com was a crash course in how to login and a brief description of its "plagiarism" check. I am sure there are many who can relate to this experience with turnitin or some other instructional fad that is suddenly our new best friend.

Last month, we featured lesson ideas to improve student engagement in classroom activities in the following areas: online research, plagiarism and feedback. You can revisit the first part of our Summer Learning: Lesson Ideas series in case you missed it.

This month, we’ve provided some lesson ideas around encouraging better writing practices Summer is the perfect time to re-tool or refresh content and revamp approaches to better improve student learning, so let us know what you think and how you can take what we’ve created and build on it.

Summer is the perfect time to re-tool or refresh content and revamp approaches to better improve student learning. Over the next three months, we will feature nine new lesson ideas that you can implement in the classroom in the Fall, three each month. These lesson suggestions are designed to help you engage students and encourage better writing practices.

The path toward our eventual “Originality Factor Week” sprang from my own frustrations as to how I could help students realize the importance of academic honesty. At the time I was our school’s academic integrity “go-to”. Although we had academic integrity policies in place and teachers were constantly working with students on proper techniques to avoid plagiarism it was still evident that more could and needed to be done.

Guest classroom practices blog post written by Tony Russell, English Professor at Central Oregon Community College

It’s uncanny how often I’m asked, “Do you catch a lot of plagiarists?” I suppose it’s my lot in life as a writing instructor. I mean, I imagine that police officers tire of being asked, “Do you write a lot of tickets?” Nevertheless, what is so unsettling to me is the enthusiasm with which I’m asked if I “catch a lot of plagiarists.”

Guest classroom practices blog post written by Alan Reid, an Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing and Instructional Technologies at Coastal Carolina University

As Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing & Instructional Technologies, motivating undergraduates to effectively peer review student writing can be challenging at times. Although there is an introspective usefulness in being exposed to the work of peers, this is often overlooked by students with the shortsighted view that the assignment is only another grade value and nothing more. In my experience, this difficulty in executing a valuable peer review activity stems from two student misconceptions: (1) that there is no benefit to reviewing someone else’s work, and (2) that peer feedback is useless.

Institution-wide adoption strategies blog by Cindy Freed, English Dept. Chair at Pinellas Park High School

As previously stated in my first blog, the motivation to further the agenda of a grassroots effort takes initiative. With the Common Core Standards firmly in place, and teachers having to adapt their instructional methods and curriculum materials to meet the expectations of the new assessments that will measure the standards, I came to the realization that all content areas in our district would benefit from Turnitin’s resources to improving writing skills across the district.

Over 17,000 educators and students registered for the Plagiarism Education Week 2015 virtual conference, which took place April 20-24. Twelve speakers conducted eight online sessions based on the theme “Copy/Paste/Culture.” Although the conference had 10 sessions in 2014, this was our largest audience since the conference began in 2013.

Based on the feedback we received, and our own opinions, the talks were thought-provoking, the audience questions were insightful, and we learned quite a few things about how to build a culture of integrity.

Institution-wide adoption strategies blog by Cindy Freed, English Dept. Chair at Pinellas Park High School

The motivation to further the agenda of a grassroots effort takes initiative. With that being said, it also takes persistence, credibility and a passion for what is being extolled by the efforts. As an English Chair of a high school located in a county that has over 101,000 students and state standards that profess the need to prepare students for college and career, I have been a firm believer in accessing the 21st century skills required of students in order to be successful in our global society. As a result of this maxim, over the past seven years, I have been a huge proponent of turnitin.com as an online platform for allowing students and teachers to interact in a manner in which technological skills are enhanced and time and energy are saved.

All-Star thoughts by Audrey Wick, Winner of the 2015 All-Stars Awards and English Professor at Blinn College

In 2014, I earned the Turnitin Higher Ed MVP All-Star award for actively promoting the use of Turnitin inside and outside Blinn College in the central Texas region where I teach English as a full-time professor. This year, it was my honor to serve as a judge for the 2015 All-Star Awards, which recognize dedicated educators who have a passion for teaching.